264 MEMOIES OF BACHEL.

The poet calls human nature a " pendulum between a smile
and a tear," and this is the true view that comedy must take;
this was the view taken of it by La Chaussee: to have en-
larged or cultivated the tract he opened is a glorious progress.
At the present day we may well wonder that he who first
embodied this appreciation of life should have been sneered at.
To the old detractors of La Chausse'e Madame de Girardin
opposed the triumphant reputation of her talent—an indispu-
table authority. She was well aware that smiles and tears
were the two poles of the human heart, at times brought to-
gether by a violent shock, and.in "La Joie Fait Peur" she
chose the subject most susceptible of being put upon the stage.
We often hear the phrase of " to laugh until you cry," and
there is no sadder species of insanity than that produced by
extreme grief, and which betrays itself by violent fits of laugh-
ter. What was peculiarly her own, that which specially con-
stituted Madame de Girardin's originality, was the skillful
manner in which she effected a transition between those two
extremes of feeling. She was well acquainted with the chords
of the instrument, and succeeded in charming her readers or
her audience without agitating them with too violent an emo-
tion, or giving too great a sfiock to the nervous system.

"Lady Tartuffe" was not, perhaps, as pleasing or as cor-
rect a work as " La Joie Fait Peur." The author was pro-
gressing in a department of dramatic art in which she would
have reached perfection had her life been,spared, and "Lady
Tartuffe" was younger by a year than her more successful
play. It betokens too hurried an execution. The plot is,
perhaps, too intricate; there is much to be pruned—much
that needed more delicate a finish. Some of the speeches are
too long, and weary the audience; while the result, which has
been laboriously sought among a crowd of incidents, proves
•unsatisfactory. Still, with all its faults, " Lady Tartuffe" is
a type belonging to the authoress, and which, had she re-
modeled it, would have proved an excellent comedy.
/ The worst fault of this play was its title, a title plainly in-
dicating the intention "of the author, but one as mistaken as
&r*^iff fcojd, for it is in no way justified by* the heroine. It is
trumpets announcing the entrance into the listsan, such as she is
Fay.e titter ab-cessive days. To form some idea of